Catholics are the original Christians
Can you show me where, in scripture, that is said? Catholic is the church that endured, but there is NO WHERE in Acts that says ANYTHING about a "Catholic church", a pope, or anything. There is an EARLY church, but there is no direct scripture that ties A to B, and you'll have to excuse me if I don't find ANYTHING the Vatican says as very reliable. For all we know, it could be a situation like the Quran where two sects fight over the main religion, and Catholics just smashed out every other sect of the early church, including some that may very well have been older or direct than they were. We have no direct evidence on this subject besides whatever the Vatican decides to make up.
You accept the Bible that the Church produced,
Bro. Stop. Stop and learn, PLEASE, before you make such an uneducated statement. 200 years ago, ok, when the KJV was the only bible around. But even then, you had translations from people such as Martin Luther, which also discredit you. Modern bible translations are done via original scripts that have been discovered in the 2000 years since Jesus lived. NONE of the bibles I use on a daily basis have a scriptural basis on work done by that church. Quite the contrary, they are translations of the source hebrew, greek, ararmaic scripts directly to english. You can't even make the arguement that the church "carried the bible through history and formated it for us" because, pretending for a second that the catholic church never existed, we STILL could rewrite the entire bible based on all the original scrolls we have without ever touching a Vatican source.
When you impose a man made fallible interpretation on scripture you end up with various belief traditions. In the earliest days of Christianity, the faith was proclaimed orally by the apostles and their immediate successors, without a fixed collection of New Testament writings. The first generation of believers did not yet have a written New Testament, but received the fullness of Christ's teaching through apostolic preaching, example, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. This living Tradition (encompassing doctrine, worship, and moral instruction) formed the complete expression of the faith, as the apostles "proclaimed in public" the Gospel before committing it to writing under divine inspiration.
The key is to find the Apostolic Tradition the original full deposit of faith which will help you interpret the Bible. Acts 8:30-31 "So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” 2 Thessalonians 2:15 "Therefore, brothers, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught, either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours." 1 Corinthians 11:2 "I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold fast to the traditions, just as I handed them on to you."
So, your argument is that the average person is too stupid to understand the writings in the bible, thus the catholic church HAS to be the church because they're the only ones with the ability to translate scripture for everyday people? I'm sorry bro, but you're doing a very poor job of arguing this, when Jesus himself said the word of God will NEVER fade away, and also said that his yoke is easy and his burden light (In reference to the gospel). We are VERY blessed in our modern era to have a lot of very easy to read bibles that can break down the harder concepts into bite sized bits that are easier for some to digest. But even ignoring that, the gospel itself, which is the cornerstone of ANY belief in Christ, is simple to the point of being seemly too good to be true. It's why the early church was able to spread the way it did without "Priests and Popes" to teach them a bunch of meaningless rituals that in no way impart soul salvation through humanly works.
Which goes back to what I said 2 or 3 posts back: Catholics are saved as long as they have true faith in our Lord, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ. The side dogma and crap the catholics heap on their parishioners have NOTHING to do with their salvation, up to and including the worship of a human woman who happened to carry the Christ to term.
What did the early Christians believe when the Bible was NOT yet compiled, when what was to become the New Testament was NOT yet written? They had the fullness of truth, God's Word preserved orally in the Apostolic Tradition. Think about the early Church and what they did when proclaiming the Gospel and in worship when they had no New Testament. They still had the fullness of the deposit of faith. When that Church compiled their Bible, they didn't throw out the fullness of truth, the Apostolic Tradition. Their Bible commanded them to hold fast to that Tradition.
People who came later in 1500s (the many Protestant traditions), the 1800s (the Mormon tradition) certainly can be intelligent, quote verses, and know their tradition backwards. Everyone doesn't read the Bible the same way. They read the Bible differently than the Church of the first century. They have something different than those that held fast to the Apostolic Tradition. You can take a look at what Eastern Orthodox believed as it is an Apostolic faith and compare it to the tradition that you hold, if you prefer.
Lol wait. Ignatius of Antioch in the first century AD stated where jesus is, there is the catholic church.